in a preceding part of this work (t). Civil corporations are subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench; spiritual corporations are visited in ecclesiastical matters by the ordinary; and eleemosynary corporations, founded by the king, are subject to the visitation of the king and his successors, and when founded by a private individual, to the visitation of the founder or his heirs, or the person specially appointed by the founder; for the ordinary has no power of visitation over lay corporations.

The founder of all corporations (in the strictest and original sense) is the king alone, for he only can incorporate a society; and in civil incorporations, such as mayor and commonalty, &c., where there are no possessions or endowments given to the body, there is no other founder but the king (u); but in eleemosynary foundations, such as colleges and hospitals, where there is an endowment of lands, the law distinguishes and makes two species of foundation-the one, fundatio

(t) Ante, pp. 21, 26.

(u) By stat. 5 & 6 Will. IV. C. 76, s. 1 (for the regulation of municipal corporations in England and Wales), so much of all laws, statutes, and usages, and so much of all royal and other charters, grants, and letters patent then in force relating to the several boroughs named in the schedules (A) and (B) to that act annexed, or to the inhabitants thereof, or to the several bodies or reputed bodies corporate named in the said schedules, or any of them, as are inconsistent with, or contrary to, the provisions of that act, are thereby repealed.

By the 141st section of the same act, after reciting that sundry towns and boroughs of England and Wales are not towns corporate, and that it is expedient that several of them

should be incorporated, enacts," that if the inhabitant householders of any town or borough in England and Wales, shall petition his majesty to grant to them a charter of incorporation, it shall be lawful for his majesty, by any such charter, if he shall think fit, by advice of his privy council, to grant the same, to extend to the inhabitants of any such town or borough within the district, to be set forth in such charter the powers and provisions in that act contained : provided nevertheless, that notice of every such petition, and of the time when it shall please his majesty to order that the same be taken into consideration by his privy council, shall be published, by royal proclamation, in the London Gazette, one month at least before such petition shall be so considered."

incipiens, or the incorporation, in which sense the king is the general founder of all colleges and hospitals; the other fundatio perficiens, or the dotation of it, in which sense the first gift of the revenues is the foundation, and he who gives them is in law the founder; and it is in this last sense that we generally call a man a founder of a college or hospital (v). But here the king has his prerogative—for if the king and a private man join in endowing an eleemosynary foundation, the king alone shall be the founder of it (w); and, in general, the king, being the sole founder of all civil corporations, and the endower the perficient founder of all eleemosynary ones, the right of visitation of the former results, according to the rule laid down, to the king, and of the latter to the patron or endower (x).

If a common person founded an abbey or priory, with possessions of small value, and afterwards the king endowed it with large possessions, yet such person was the founder (y).

The king, being thus constituted by the law visitor of all civil corporations, the law has also appointed the place wherein he shall exercise this jurisdiction, which is the Court of King's Bench; where, and where only, all misbehaviours. of this kind of corporations are inquired into and redressed, and their controversies decided. In general, corporate bodies, which respect the public police of the country and the administration of justice, are better regulated, under the superintendence of that court, than the Court of Chancery (≈); and this is what is understood to be the meaning of lawyers, when they say that these civil corporations are liable to no visitation—that is, the law, having by immemorial usage appointed them to be visited and inspected by the king, their founder, in his Majesty's Court of King's Bench, according to the rules of the common law, they ought not to be visited elsewhere, or by any other authority; and this is so strictly true,

(v) 10 Rep. 33, 2 T. R. 352. (w) 2 Inst. 68.

(x) 1 Bl. Comm. 480, 481.

(y) 2 Inst. 68. See Magna Charta, 9 Henry III., c. 33.

(z) 4 T. R. 233.

that though the king, by his letters patent, had subjected the college of physicians to the visitation of four very respectable persons-the lord chancellor, the two chief justices, and the chief baron; though the college had accepted this charter with all possible marks of acquiescence, and had acted under it for near a century, yet, in 1753, the authority of this provision coming in dispute, on an appeal preferred to these supposed visitors, they directed the legality of their own appointment to be argued; and, as this college was merely a civil, and not an eleemosynary foundation, they at length determined, upon several days' solemn debate, that they had no jurisdiction as visitors, and remitted the appellant (if aggrieved) to his regular remedy in his Majesty's Court of King's Bench (a).

By the common law, all spiritual persons and corporations— as parsons, vicars, deans, prebendaries, deans, and chaptersare subject to the visitation of the ordinary; as were formerly spiritual hospitals, abbies, and priories (b); but royal foundations, free chapels, and donatives are exempt from the

(a) 1 Bl. Comm. 481.

King's College, London, is incorporated by letters patent, dated 14th August, 1829, by the name of "The Governors and Proprietors of King's College, London ;" who are enabled, by that name, to take, purchase, and hold, to them and their successors, any goods, chattels, or personal property whatsoever; and, notwithstanding the statutes of mortmain, to take, purchase, and hold, to them and their successors,. not only all such lands, buildings, hereditaments, and possessions as may be, from time to time, exclusively used and occupied for the immediate purposes of the said college, but also any other lands, buildings, hereditaments, and possessions whatsoever, situate within the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, not exceeding the annual value of 5000l., such annual value to be calculated and ascertained at the period of taking, purchasing, or acquiring the same; with power to grant, demise, alien, or otherwise dispose of, all or any of the property, real or personal, belonging to the said college; and to do all other matters incidental or appertaining to a body corporate. The Archbishop of Canterbury (for the time being) is appointed by the charter visitor of the said college, with authority to do all those things which pertain to visitors, as often as to him shall seem meet.

(b) 2 Roll. Abr. 229, 230, 231; 10 Rep. 31; 12 Mod. 12.

visitation of the ordinary, and subject to that of the patron only, whether that patron be the king or a subject (c); and the king visits either by his chancellor, or by commissioners, or in person (d).

By stat. 1 & 2 Geo. II. c. 10, s. 14, 15, all such donatives as have been augmented by the governors of Queen Anne's bounty, as at the time of their augmentation, were exempt from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, shall, by such augmentation, become subject to the visitation and jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese where such donative is; but no donative is to be augmented without the consent of the patron in writing, under his hand and seal.

There were likewise some abbies and priories, and spiritual hospitals, and some chapels and churches belonging to abbies and priories, which were specially exempted from the visitation of the ordinary, and subject only to that of the pope; and when the jurisdiction of the pope was abolished by stat. 25 Henry VIII., c. 21, the exemption was continued by the 20th section of that act, and the visitation ordered to be by commission from the king, under the great seal; but by stat. 31 Henry VIII., c. 13, s. 23, all churches and chapels belonging to the monasteries and other religious houses, dissolved by that statute, which were exempted from the visitation of the ordinary, were subjected to the visitation of the ordinary of the diocese, or to that of such person or persons as the king should appoint.

The ordinary may in his general visitation, by virtue of his visitatorial power, deprive a canon or prebendary for incontinency or other offences described in the statutes; and this of his own authority, without observing all the preliminary forms appointed by the statutes (e). But a bishop, as visitor of the dean and chapter, seems to have no jurisdiction to determine between the members on the subject of their corporate property, at least where the representatives of

(c) Co. Litt. 344 a. Fortescq. 329; 1 Mod. 84; Anon. 12 Mod. 233; Fairchild v. Gayre, Cro. Jac. 63; S. C. Yelv. 60.

(d) Co. Litt. 96 a., 344 a. ; 2 Roll. Abr. 230.

(e) Rex v. Bishop of Chester, 1 Wils. 206; 1 W. Bl. 22.

deceased prebendaries are concerned (f). It is clear that he cannot, by virtue of such power, fill up a vacancy in the stalls of the cathedral by lapse (g). And whether he can, as visitor, decide in matters of election to such stalls, is a question which has not yet received an entire solution (h). And where the powers of a visitor of a spiritual corporation are suspended, or no visitor expressly appointed, the Court of King's Bench has jurisdiction (i).

Where an archbishop has a right to visit a dean and chapter, the manner of his visitation is not so material as to lay a ground for a prohibition, because any error or defect in the manner of the visitation may be remedied by appeal (k).

Although a benefice is appropriated to a prior, or a dean and chapter, yet the bishop may visit, to see how the church is served, &c., and for contumacy may proceed to suspend the incumbent from his office and benefice (1).

By stat. 2 Henry V. c. 1, s. 1, it was enacted, that hospitals of the king's foundation should be visited by the ordinaries, by virtue of the king's commission directed to them, and that other hospitals should be visited by the ordinaries, who should inquire of the foundation and government of the same and of all other necessary matters, and thereupon make correction and reformation according to the law of holy church as to them belonged (m).

(f) Rex v. Bishop of Durham, 1 Burr. 567; 8. C. 2 Ken. 296. (g) Bishop of Chichester v. Harward, 1 T. R. 650.

(h) Ibid. 1 Wooddes. 474, 475. (i) Rex v. Bishop of Chester, 2 Str. 797.

(k) Bishop of Kildare v. Archbishop of Dublin, 2 Br. P. C. 179, 2nd ed.

(1) Harrison v. Archbishop of Dublin, 2 Br. P. C. 199, 2nd ed.

(m) 2 Henry V. stat. 1. c. 1, "First, forasmuch as many hospitals within the realm of England (founded as well by the noble kings of the said

realm, and lords and ladies spiritual and temporal, as by others of divers ̧ estates, to the honour of God and of his glorious mother, in aid and merit of the souls of the said founders, to the which hospitals the said founders have given largely of their moveable goods for the buildings of the same, and largely of their lands and tenements, therewith to sustain old men and women, lazers, men and women out of their wits, poor women with child, and other poor persons, to nourish, relieve, and refresh them there) be now for the most part decayed, and